


The Prince & The Skater

by ScribblerQueen1



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Gen, M/M, Modern Royalty, Vicchan Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribblerQueen1/pseuds/ScribblerQueen1
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri grew up living a modest life, but his father was once a prince who renounced his title to marry his mother. Now Yuuri's uncle the emperor needs to declare an heir and has asked Yuuri to become Japan's Crown Prince. All Yuuri wants to do is accomplish his dreams of skating on the same ice as Victor Nikiforov.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	The Prince & The Skater

It’s the middle of Yuuri’s time on the ice, when he gets a text from his sister Mari telling him to call as soon as possible. Their parents want to speak with him about something important. Worried that something bad has happened, Yuuri calls out to Celestino that he’s going to take a quick break to call his parents. Once he’s sitting on the bench, he hits the call button.

“Mari, what’s going on? Did something happen? What’s-” Yuuri begins to ask a bit panicked. 

“Hold on, chill for a moment-” Mari cuts him off nonchalantly, calling for their parents in the background. “Okay they’re here, let me put you on speaker phone.”

“Hello, Yuuri dear, how are you?” His mother greets him cheerfully.

“I’m fine, is everything alright? You guys never call me like this.” Yuuri begins to question them now.

“Everything is fine, you worry too much about us honey.” His mother starts off not actually explaining anything because as much as Yuuri loves her, his mother tends to meander a bit when explaining important things.

“Then why did Mari say it was urgent that I call?” Yuuri asks again.

“Oh, yes! Your uncle is coming to discuss something important with us and we need you to come home for a little bit while he’s here.” That explanation doesn’t actually clear things up for Yuuri.

“Kaa-san, I can’t come home right now, I’m training and the next season will be starting soon. I don’t understand why I have to come home if Tao-ojisan is coming, can’t we just video chat when he comes. It’d be a huge expense to fly home right now, and I need to work with my coach and I’m not his only student.” He’s told them this before, it’s difficult with college, training, and competing. Yuuri knows that his goals are expensive and he doesn’t want to burden them with it so instead he budgets meticulously and sacrifices a lot, including going home.

“Ah, Yuuri it’s not Tao-ojisan that’s coming.” His father speaks for the first time.

“What do you mean, who else would it-” And then it clicks.

Yuuri had grown up with a modest and simple life, in the small island tourist town called Hasetsu. His immediate family consisted of him, his parents, and older sister. On his mother’s side he had one uncle, and his maternal grandparents had been deceased for some time now. That was the extent of his maternal lineage. But there was his father’s side of the family, which was rarely spoken of. And there was a good reason for it.

See, once upon a time his father had been second in line as the youngest prince of Japan.

Yuuri had known this since he was little, but never thought much of it because he was not royalty. His mother was not an ‘acceptable’ choice as a bride and his paternal grandfather, emperor at the time, had told his father that he was not allowed to marry her. Yuuri’s father had subsequently renounced his claim for the throne and disappeared to their small town to marry the love of his life. Together they began an onsen and two children. End of story.

His paternal grandfather had passed eventually and his uncle had taken the throne as emperor. They rarely interacted with him because of such, even though the brothers were still close. So it was shocking to hear that he would be visiting. It explained why his parents insisted that he come home.

“What? Why?” Yuuri asks again.

“He didn’t specify, he just asked that you be here as well when he comes.” Yuuri sighs and he doesn’t know what to do.

At this moment Phichit calls out to him from the edge of the rink.

“Uh, hey, Yuuri? Did you arrange a trip for us to go to Japan?” He turns his phone screen to face Yuuri so that he can see a confirmation email for a flight to Japan. 

Yuuri quickly pulls his own email up on his phone and sees that he has the same email addressed to him. 

“Did you guys buy the tickets already?” He quickly asks his parents, getting back on the phone with them.

“Huh? We didn’t purchase any tickets.” Yuuri’s mother responds, just as confused as him.

“Well who else would know to buy plane tickets, for my coach and rinkmate, while having their emails.” He could never ask anyone to do that for him, one ticket alone was expensive.

“Oh, that was probably ojisan, he asked about why you hadn’t come home and who your coach was.” Mari chimes in with the answer.

It seemed that his uncle was really adamant that he was to be home when he came to visit. Normally someone would question how he set this all up, but his uncle was the emperor of Japan. He has the power and the money to throw around to find out the information he needs and spend the money on the tickets. It’s not like Yuuri can call up his uncle and decline either, it would be extremely rude to do so to the emperor. He sighs.

“I guess I’m coming home then.” Yuuri finally responds.

Once he gets off the phone with his family he finds Phichit still looking at him expectantly for an answer.

“Apparently, my uncle bought us all tickets so that I can be home when he visits.” Yuuri explains, still weirded out by the whole thing.

“Oh my god! We’re finally getting to your origin story!” Phichit yells excitedly. Yuuri can only give his best friend a disappointed look. “Celestino! We’re going to visit Yuuri’s home in Japan!”

Celestino, who’d been busy talking with another coach, looks over to his skaters, neither of whom are skating like they’re supposed to be.

“Phichit, what are you talking about? Get back to skating! Both of you!” He yells back at them.

Yuuri finds that Phichit is more excited than he is about boarding the plane to his hometown, all he feels is apprehension and nerves. It also doesn’t help that his uncle sprung for all the extra amenities for their flight; like the car service who picked them up and took care of their luggage, the private lounge, and first class seats. Both him and Celestino seem to suspect that something is up but Yuuri is choosing not to deal with that right now.

At least Phichit is enjoying the social media advantage he has right now, he’s just stressing about why his uncle wants to see him.

They take the train from the airport which relaxes Yuuri a bit. He enjoys watching the familiar scenic route for their hour long trip, when they arrive at their stop the group is greeted by a familiar face.

“Yo.” Mari catches his attention easily, casually leaning against a pillar seeming slightly amused.

It takes all of about five seconds for it to become clear as to why she’s amused because of Phichit’s following outburst.

“Oh my god! Look at all the posters!” Yuuri stops at the exclamation and looks around the station and to his utter horror discovers the walls plastered with posters of him everywhere. He covers his face in embarrassment.

There’s a sound of rapid clicks that he immediately recognizes as Phichit taking pictures but he’s too late to stop his intentions.

“Phichit, don’t-”

“Already did!” Phichit calls back.

He glares half heartedly at Phichit because at this point Yuuri should really know better when it comes to his best friend. He sighs, knowing his notifications will be blowing up for a little while because the skating community treats his social media involvement like cryptid sightings because he rarely posts himself, most of his content is actually Phichit’s really.

With all the stress and anxiety of the trip, Yuuri did forget about some of the good aspects of coming home. One in particular flies out the door in a blur of brown fur upon their arrival at Yuu-topia.

“Vicchan!” Yuuri quickly kneels down to let himself be attacked with a flurry of wet tongued poodle kisses. Phichit is quick to capture this reunion on camera as well.

“He’s missed you a lot.” Yuuri’s mother, Hiroko, appears to greet them.

Seeing his mother, he quickly stands to greet her while holding the squirming Vicchan at the same time. Yuuri also follows up by introducing Phichit as this was their first time meeting in person.

“Thank you for taking care of my son. Is there anything you’d like to eat, I’m sure you’re all tired from traveling.” Hiroko asks once they all get inside.

“Oh! Yes! I want to try Katsuki Mama’s famous Katsudon.” Phichit declares immediately.

“Of course, I’ll make some for everyone. Why don’t you get settled in, in the meantime?” Hiroko suggests.

Yuuri helps bring the luggage to their rooms and then rounds back to the kitchens so that he can talk with his mother in private.

“Kaa-san? Where’s Tou-san? And is oji-sama not here yet?” He inquires.

“Ah, your father is out running errands at the moment, he should be back before dinner. Your uncle will be arriving tomorrow at noon. He wanted you to have some time to rest before he came to visit, you did travel all day.” Hiroko explains as she grabs out the proper pots and pans to go about making his favorite dish.

“Is there something troubling you?” She pauses to look at Yuuri. His mother always knew when something was bothering him.

“It’s just that, Oji-sama doesn’t visit often and I’m surprised that he insisted that I come home. He didn’t last time. It’s just kind of odd, don’t you think?” Yuuri points out to his mother.

“I don’t think so at all. He’s always been very fond of you Yuuri, and you’ve been away from home for a long time. I’m sure that he was just worried that you weren’t giving yourself a break, as much as you love to skate.” Hiroko assures her son and Yuuri knows that she has a point.

“Now, shoo, get out of the kitchen and go rest. I want to make my son and his friends a nice welcoming meal.” 

Yuuri smiles fondly at his mother and abides by her wishes, leaving her to do as she pleased.

Later on when the Katsudon is ready to eat, and they’re sitting down at the table, Phichit lets out a gasp followed by a shriek. He quickly reached across the table to swat at Yuuri’s arm to redirect his attention towards his phone.

“Yuuri! Yuuri! Victor Nikiforov commented on my post!” Phichit yells, shoving his phone in Yuuri’s face, nearly smacking him in the process.

‘What?” He asks, moving Phichit’s arm so that the phone isn’t so close that he can’t read it.

Phichit had posted the video of Vicchan greeting him earlier when they first arrived at Hasetsu and highlighted was a comment from Victor’s verified account below the video. It read: “AW! Such a happy reunion! Tell your friend to give his poodle extra belly rubs and pets from me.”

“I can’t believe you posted that! I can’t believe he commented!” Yuuri responds overwhelmed. 

“Of course he did! How could you doubt my social media prowess. And you’re undermining Vicchan’s cuteness as well!” Phichit accuses dramatically, then bends down to talk to the poodle curled up in Yuuri’s lap.

“Yuuri is just being silly Vicchan, he’s been away from home too long, he’s just forgotten the power of your cuteness.” He reassures him.

Yuuri just rolls his eyes at him. As he does, he notices that his father is finally back from running errands earlier and is now going about doing tasks around the onsen.

“Ah, Tou-san!” He waves a little to catch his attention. His father stops what he’s doing and comes over to greet and welcome him home. Yuuri stands to hug him briefly.

“Kaa-san said that you were out earlier when we arrived.” Yuuri mentions once they’re finished.

“Ah, yes, I was picking up some ingredients we didn’t have for your uncle’s favorite food. He said that we didn’t need to go out of our way but he’s my brother and I would feel like a bad host if we didn’t make him feel welcome.” Toshiya explains to his son.

“Of course, he’s family after all. I was just wondering if he’d mentioned to you why he decided to visit and request that I come home?” Yuuri asks, despite what everyone else keeps saying he doesn’t feel like this is just a visit.

“Nothing in particular, just that he wanted to see everyone. Is there anything else you wanted to ask before I finish helping your mother?” Yuuri shakes his head at his father’s question and decides to continue on with his meal and admittedly being flustered over the fact that Victor had commented on Phichit’s video.

Yuuri crashes from jet lag soon after their meal and as a result wakes up rather early the next morning. Knowing that everyone else was still asleep he opted to go for a run, hoping to shake the weird feeling that he’d been having. It was nice to run his old route and enjoy the ocean breeze. Maybe he had been away too long.

When he makes it back to the onsen, Vicchan is waiting for him like usual but someone is waiting with him, petting him on the head. Once Yuuri is close enough, he’s surprised to see that his uncle has arrived earlier than expected.

“Oji-sama?” He calls out a few feet away.

“Ah, Yuuri, I figured that you’d be out on your morning run. Never one to deviate from your usual routine.” His uncle remarks looking up from where he’d bent down to pet Vicchan.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be here until later and I don’t think anyone else is awake at the moment.” Yuuri finds himself confused.

“That’s fine, I didn’t want to disturb them because I wanted to have a chance to talk with you in private.” It’s at that moment that Yuuri knew that his gut feeling was right that something was up with his uncle visiting.

“Of course. Where do you want to?” He starts to ask.

“Why don’t we just take a short walk, I’m sure Vicchan would enjoy it and you can cool down from your run.” His uncle suggests.

Yuuri grabs Vicchan’s leash quickly and then the two of them start walking along the quiet path towards the beach. Things are silent for a while as Yuuri allows his uncle to gather his thoughts before speaking.

“I’ve spent a lot of time watching you grow up into a great young man Yuuri, and I’m so proud of how hard you worked. I’ve seen how much you’ve persevered even when you might not have believed in yourself. You have traits that I would’ve wished my own children to have if I had been able to have them.” His uncle pauses.

“And I know how much you love ice skating and how much you’ve sacrificed in order to get as far as you have. You’re considered the best in Japan, our ace, as much as I know you tend to be bashful about it, you are.”

Yuuri continues to remain quiet, wondering where this is all leading.

“And at the same time, I know that I’m about to put you in a difficult position. One where I’m probably asking you to sacrifice all that you love about skating and all you’ve sacrificed for it.”

Yuuri freezes at those words.

“Oji-sama, what are you talking about?” He asks, fear gripping him.

His uncle turns and faces him directly as they stop abruptly on their walk.

“Yuuri, I’m getting on in my old age and as you know I have no children and as a result Japan has no heir to succeed me when I eventually pass. My advisors are pushing me to declare one in the very near future as well. Right now as it stands you are the last of the current dynasty and with the current political strife plaguing us, a change in power would lead to a great disruption among our people. It’s why you are my only option as heir to be future emperor.”

Yuuri cannot help but be stunned by this abrupt news.

“What? How can I be the only possible choice? Tou-san gave up his title years ago, I’m technically not even eligible as royalty because of my parents marriage.” It’s too much to even think about, Yuuri can’t imagine being what, a prince?

“Actually, as of six years ago the laws that prevented your father from marrying your mother while being a heir to the throne have been abolished. And seeing as he willingly renounced his title, his children are therefore valid heirs to the throne.” His uncle explains plainly.

Yuuri can only gape at his uncle as the weight of this news hits him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can check for progress updates on my tumblr at thescribblerqueen.


End file.
